Does this sound like you? For a few years before SAW, my creative life was not going so well. I had an OK-could-be-more-frequent-more-discliplined studio practice. I had a healthy journaling practice. Every once in a while I’d get struck by lightning. An entire comic would come to my mind’s eye and I’d put it down. I still felt unsure about whether I really wanted to make comics. Most of the time, I felt pretty uninspired by myself, my life, my work. Oh, and if you can’t tell, I was depressed during a lot of that time too. Just stuck.

During one Brooklyn Draw Jam session, they made a comic about that time I brought fries. I wanted to die.

At a certain point, I stumbled across the Brooklyn Draw Jam at Shoestring Press (which conveniently was about a block away from my apartment). The first few times I went I was so nervous. So tight. I thought they all thought I was a crazy woman who wandered in from the streets. A crazy woman who couldn’t draw.

Eventually though, the jams became my savior, the folks drawing next to me became friends. Making comics, tying threads of stories together, drawing off of what other people drew (literally), gave me such a great high. I started to think maybe I should take this comics thing more seriously. I started to think maybe I needed a teacher.

I don’t remember how I heard about SAW, but when I floated the idea of going to my buddies at the jam, they had nothing but praise for Tom and were excited about the school. I talked to Sally and Eric at SPX, and Zannah at MoCCA. Zannah, I remember had a certain intensity about her when she talked about it. I wanted to be part of a community that would motivate such loyalty in me.

‘Unanswered’ was a flash of lightning, all in one piece, comic. It was published in Ink Brick #3.

My dad died. Life seemed shorter than ever before, why not spend it making comics? I applied. Tom wrote me back the next day with an informal acceptance letter.

I went. Check in tomorrow to hear about actually being at SAW…

Guest post from Maxine Marie (SAW class of 2016). Follow her on Instagram at @maxineesque and tumblr at maxine-esque.tumblr.com.

I like the ingenuity that comes from shooting a scifi series with a shoestring budget.

“We need a spaceship. Let’s glue two hairdryers together and paint them!”

“What looks weird and bubbly? Bubblewrap looks weird and bubbly! We’ve got fifty yards of bubblewrap and a can of green spray paint, let’s make some aliens!”

“What time period should our time travellers visit? What time period did someone doing a historical drama just finish using the costumes for?”

“I’ve got some leftover tinsel rope from Christmas, but it kept falling off the door lintel and hanging over the opening. Which give me an idea.”

“We can’t afford to make a miniature shuttle land the miniature shuttle on a miniature landscape every week. Let’s give them… teleporters! We can shake some glitter in a jar of water and play that over the characters appearing wherever we like!”

I have your attentioncause anything is possibleI swear that my intentionIs nothing short of probableYou think that I’m conceitedBut maybe I’m just miserableNow that I’m improvingThey say that I have lost it all